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Review: Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals' "Lifeline"

August 30, 2007 4:36 PM

If you count the album Ben Harper recorded with the Blind Boys of Alabama and exclude his live CDs, “Lifeline” is his eighth album. 

You could argue Harper has only had two mainstream hits with the fuzzy alt-rock of “Faded” (from 1997’s “The Will to Live”) and the beat-box-fueled radio smash “Steal My Kisses” (from 1999’s “Burn to Shine”) but the man is one of the smartest, most sturdy songwriters working today.  No wonder Pearl Jam loves him.  In addition, he is a celebrated axe man.  He’s worked with everyone from Beth Orton to Jack Johnson. 

Harper’s last record was last year’s double album, “Both Sides of the Gun.”  That record was impressive, but this is tighter and more focused.  Supposedly “Lifeline” only took seven days to record. That immediacy has been effectively bottled.

The disc opens with “Fight Outta You.”  It is one of Harper’s better songs, and the first thought I had about it was that if you speed it up to triple-time and electrify it, it would make a great hard-core song.  It’s got that kind of drive and momentum. Its refrain of “Don’t let ‘em take the fight outta you” is just about as punk as you can get. He may be whispering it, strumming an acoustic guitar at somewhat of a slow pace, but that track is spitting venom. 

“In the Colors,” the album’s first single, has a New Orleans shuffle with a vague whiff of reggae.  It sounds like a long-lost groove from either the Band or Little Feat. 

“Fool for a Lonesome Train” is the kind of blues Harper is best at churning out.  Harper makes this look easy, but it isn’t.  True to its title, its acoustic riff, pitter-patter rhythm and brief harmonica accents make for a fitting rail-riding soundtrack. 

“Put It on Me” sounds a lot like a revved-up answer to “Get It Like You Like It,” off his last record, but it’s still a great song. It has the kind of opening riff you could imagine being used in an ad for a comic summer movie about baseball.  (Whether or not that’s a good thing, I’m not really sure.)

“Paris Sunset #7” is a quiet instrumental, which shows off Harper’s impressive skill with the slide guitar.  It is a very detailed musical meditation. It seems so varied that it could have been improvised and recorded in one take.

Similarly stark is the title track, a delicate hymn about “reaching for the lifeline.”  It may very well be the most beautiful song on the album -- a meaningful haunted lullaby of the highest order.   

“Younger Than Today” is a stirring piano ballad in which Harper employs the softer, higher end of his vocal range to great effect. 

On “Needed You Tonight,” Harper sets his vocal range loose like Otis Redding at his most unhinged.  It’s a powerful moment.  In fact all throughout “Lifeline,” Harper continually seems to be fighting a battle with himself.  Beneath his pseudo-hippie, folkie, jam-band-ready exterior lies one hell of a soul singer.  When that soul singer appears, it is all worth it.   It is that sense of tension that makes Harper such an engaging performer. 

(NOTE: If you can, try to pick up the two-disc, limited, deluxe edition of “Lifeline.”  The bonus disc is a DVD with a live performance of the entire album, recorded for XM Radio.)

August 30, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

Review: “This Is Next: Indie’s Biggest Hits Volume 1”

August 22, 2007 4:50 PM

In an effort to boost the profiles of many of today’s most cutting edge bands, the top-tier independent record labels (Vice, Sub-Pop, Kill Rock Stars, Merge and Matador) have joined forces to release “This Is Next: Indie’s Biggest Hits Volume 1,” the first in a series that they hope will give the very successful “Now That’s What I Call Music” brand a run for its money.

(The album cover also states that the disc is “powered by MTV2,” but frankly, that seems to be a little bit of a joke considering that the channel seem to air reruns of “Pimp My Ride” much more than they show videos these days.)

Essentially, what they’ve created is a best-of, hits mix for the hipster crowd.  No doubt, they were also inspired by the success of similar indie-themed soundtracks to “Garden State,” “The O.C.” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” not to mention indie-rock’s many recent triumphs on the Billboard charts.

“This Is Next” opens with Bloc Party’s “The Prayer.”  Immediately you are hit with a powerful boom-bap, and a haunting chant that almost sounds like monks deep in meditation.  This surreal stomp is quite stirring.  It is such a bold track that it demands a full-throttle, hip-hop flavored remix or at least a darkly gothic cheerleading routine to go with it!

Out of 15 tracks on the disc, there are three flawless singles.  The first one is the Shins’ “Phantom Limb,” in which James Mercer manages to summon his inner Brian Wilson and deliver one of his most soaring melodies to date.  It’s no wonder the band debuted at No. 2 on the album chart.

The second flawless entry is Spoon’s new single “The Underdog,” which, with its rapid acoustic-guitar strumming, joyous horn section and hand-claps, sounds like it should be running over the credits of a Wes Anderson movie.  With a textured voice that’s full of bile and natural cynicism, you really believe and are a little scared by singer Britt Daniel when he sings, “You’ve got no fear of the underdog. That’s why you will not survive!”

Finally, the third masterpiece is “Hold On Hold On” by alt-country singer Neko Case.  By far the best song on Case’s great record “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” this is the kind of performance that makes careers. Case’s voice is much more booming and soulful than it is twangy.  It is a raspy, ethereal instrument.  I may have listened to this track two hundred times since its original release, but it never gets old.  It just continues to unfold.  Thirty years ago, this would’ve been a huge hit and perhaps her signature song.  These days, Top 40 radio has no sense of adventure; thus this stellar track is allowed to slip through the cracks.  Hopefully its inclusion on this compilation will boost its number of plays on radio.  If Brenda Lee were to reinterpret a Lee Hazlewood tune, it might very well sound like this.

When listening to M. Ward’s dusty, homegrown acoustic blues on “Chinese Translation,” you can almost picture the singer sitting on the front porch of a quaint, little house strumming away. 
Deerhoof deliver an off-kilter, semipsychotic sounding, organ-driven boogie on “The Perfect Me.”  It’s a track that is just as weird as it is appealing.  Imagine Stereolab with occasional speed-metal spasms. 

Bright Eyes’ “Four Winds” comes complete with a fiddle section. Cat Power brings the lights down low with an all-too-knowing, soulful ode to drinking on “Lived in Bars.”  Ted Leo & the Pharmacists manage to sound like a more updated, much more punk answer to the Joe Jackson Band on “Colleen.”  Of Montreal aren’t afraid to get weird and trippy.  The Hold Steady combine power-pop and pub-rock while Cold War Kids bring a sense of immediacy to their track.

The only track I can imagine never getting to rock radio is the closer, “Satan Said Dance” by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.  It’s a challenging piece.  Some may find Alec Ounsworth’s high-pitched, semi-off-key delivery to be an acquired taste.  The track is a little grating and sort of a mess, albeit with a pretty righteous organ solo. 

Perhaps it is being too picky to point out that both Sonic Youth and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs  have contracts with major labels.  Both these bands were signed to indie labels before, so I guess it isn’t a stretch to still call them indie rock. 

Sonic Youth pretty much helped invent the genre, and their last album “Rather Ripped” was one of their best and most accessible records to date, but “Do You Believe In Rapture?,” the track picked for this compilation, isn’t the best representation of their skills.  The record’s opener, “Reena,” would’ve been a much better pick. 

If you like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Cheated Hearts,” feel free to pick up their album “Show Your Bones.”  At the same time, I highly recommend you also pick up their astonishing new EP “Is Is.”  It is one of the best of the year.

“This Is Next” is a good compilation, even if most of these songs play better within the context of their original albums.  It’s an indie-rock starter-kit.  It will give people a chance to listen a lot of new, hip bands they may not otherwise hear. 

August 22, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

Review: Paul Van Dyk's 'In Between'

August 16, 2007 11:07 AM

Paul Van Dyk is considered one of the innovators of German trance and house music. Listen to his new record, “In Between,” and it’s obvious that he hasn’t lost any spark despite his nearly two-decade climb through the Berlin club scene.

“In Between” is a nonstop banging dance attack filled with interesting electronic sounds. House music can be boring, but Van Dyk switches up sounds enough to make things interesting.

If the album has a flaw, it’s its use of guest vocalists. Van Dyk is best left all by himself, so he can fill your ears with awesome atmospheric sounds. “Sabotage” is proof of this. Beats whoosh past your ears. A filter here, a filter there, and the bass, though repetitive, keeps evolving and morphing.

In contrast, a guest vocalist like Jessica Sutta of the Pussycat Dolls (who appears on “White Lies”) only ups the cheese factor and kills the atmospheric tension. The same goes for Ashley Tomberlin, who makes several appearances, though her vocal style is a little toned down, lessening the negative effect. Lo-Fi Sugar does a respectable though generic job guesting on “Haunted.”

Having guest vocalists on electronic records is a challenge. If they aren’t distinctive enough, they wind up sounding like rent-a-vocalists and that can only be a bad thing. The best option is to pick someone who is a known entity. Van Dyk does this once on “In Between.” The last song on the album, “Fall With Me,” features David Byrne, whose vocal delivery recalls the Talking Heads song “Sax and Violins.” It’s not a surprise that Byrne does well here. After all, he’s recorded a couple tracks as a guest vocalist with Thievery Corporation. He is one of those rare vocalists who can only up a track’s cool factor.

“In Between” is an album of traveling music. Relentless adrenaline-driven songs like “Far Away” and “Another Sunday” bring to mind running sequences in action films. There’s hardly a down moment. Van Dyk keeps the momentum going. If you are looking for a good dance record and are willing to overlook some so-so vocal cameos (and some unintentionally humorous, vain rock-star poses by Van Dyk in the CD booklet) than this might just be a record for you. Van Dyk does enough to carry the album past its weak spots.

August 16, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (3)